The Navy as a Fighting Machine

by Bradley A. Fiske

NAVAL A, B, C

In order to realize what principles govern the use of navies, let us first consider what navies have to do and get history's data as to what navies in the past have done. It would obviously be impossible to recount here all the doings of navies. But neither is it necessary; for the reason that, throughout the long periods of time in which history records them, their activities have nearly always been the same.

In all cases in which navies have been used for war there was the preliminary dispute, often long-continued, between two peoples or their rulers, and at last the decision of the dispute by force. In all cases the decision went to the side that could exert the most force at the critical times and places. The fact that the causes of war have been civil, and not military, demands consideration, for the reason that some people, confusing cause and effect, incline to the belief that armies and navies are the cause of war, and that they are to be blamed for its horrors. History clearly declares the contrary, and shows that the only rôle of armies and navies has been to wage wars, and, by waging, to finish them.

It may be well here, in order to clear away a possible preconception by the reader, to try and dispel the illusion that army and navy officers are eager for war, in order that they may get promotion. This idea has been exploited by people opposed to the development of the army and navy, and has been received with so much credulity that it seriously handicaps the endeavors of officers to get an unbiassed hearing. But surely the foolishness of such an idea would promptly disappear from the brain of any one if he would remind himself that simply because a man joins the army or navy he does not cease to be a human being, with the same emotions of fear as other men, the same sensitiveness to pain, the same dread of death, and the same horror of leaving his family unsupported after his death. It is true that men in armies and navies are educated to dare death if need be; but the present writer has been through two wars, has been well acquainted with army and navy officers for forty-five years, and knows positively that, barring exceptions, they do not desire war at all.

Without going into an obviously impossible discussion of all naval wars, it may be instructive to consider briefly the four naval wars in which the United States has engaged.

The first was the War of the American Revolution. This war is instructive to those who contend that the United States is so far from Europe as to be safe from attack by a European fleet; because the intervening distance was frequently traversed then by British and French fleets of frail, slow, sailing ships, which were vital factors in the war. Without the British war-ships, the British could not have landed and supported their troops. Without the French war-ships the French could not have landed and supported their troops, who, under Rochambeau, were also under Washington, and gave him the assistance that he wofully needed, to achieve by arms our independence.

The War of 1812 is instructive from the fact that, though the actions of our naval ships produced little material effect, the skill, daring, and success with which they were fought convinced Europeans of the high character and consequent noble destiny of the American people. The British were so superior in sea strength, however, that they were able to send their fleet across the ocean and land a force on the shores of Chesapeake Bay. This force marched to Washington, attacked the city, and burned the Capitol and other public buildings, with little inconvenience to itself.

The War of the Rebellion is instructive because it shows how two earnest peoples, each believing themselves right, can be forced, by the very sincerity of their convictions, to wage war against each other; and because it shows how unpreparedness for war, with its accompanying ignorance of the best way in which to wage it, causes undue duration of a war and therefore needless suffering. If the North had not closed its eyes so resolutely to the fact of the coming struggle, it would have noted beforehand that the main weakness of the Confederacy lay in its dependence on revenue from cotton and its inability to provide a navy that could prevent a blockade of its coasts; and the North would have early instituted a blockade so tight that the Confederacy would have been forced to yield much sooner than it did. The North would have made naval operations the main effort, instead of the auxiliary effort; and would have substituted for much of the protracted and bloody warfare of the land the quickly decisive and comparatively merciful warfare of the sea.

In the Spanish War the friction between the United States and Spain was altogether about Cuba. No serious thought of the invasion of either country was entertained, no invasion was attempted, and the only land engagements were some minor engagements in Cuba and the Philippines. The critical operations were purely naval. In the first of these, Commodore Dewey's squadron destroyed the entire Far Eastern squadron of the Spanish in Manila Bay; in the second, Admiral Sampson's squadron destroyed the entire Atlantic squadron of the Spanish near Santiago de Cuba. The two naval victories compelled Spain to make terms of peace practically as the United States wished. Attention is invited to the fact that this war was not a war of conquest, was not a war of aggression, was not a war of invasion, was not a war carried on by either side for any base purpose; but was in its intention and its results for the benefit of mankind.

The Russo-Japanese War was due to conflicting national policies. While each side accused the other of selfish ends, it is not apparent to a disinterested observer that either was unduly selfish in its policy, or was doing more than every country ought to advance the interests and promote the welfare of its people. Russia naturally had a great deal of interest in Manchuria, and felt that she had a right to expand through the uncivilized regions of Manchuria, especially since she needed a satisfactory outlet to the sea. In other words, the interests of Russia were in the line of its expanding to the eastward. But Japan's interests were precisely the reverse of Russia's—that is, Japan's interests demanded that Russia should not do those things that Russia wanted to do. Japan felt that Russia's movement toward the East was bringing her entirely too close to Japan. Russia was too powerful a country, and too aggressive, to be trusted so close. Japan had the same feeling toward Russia that any man might have on seeing another man, heavily armed, gradually coming closer to him in the night. Japan especially wished that Russia should have no foothold in Corea, feeling, as she expressed it, that the point of Corea under Russian power would be a dagger directed at the heart of Japan. This feeling about Corea was the same feeling that every country has about land near her; it has a marked resemblance to the feeling that the United States has embodied in Monroe Doctrine.